The Best Creamy Vegan Tomato Soup

Recipe Difficulty: Easy! Once you make your cashew cream (they require an overnight soak, so a bit of planning is needed), the rest comes together quickly. 

Recipe Tags:

• Creamy Tomato Soup
• The Best Tomato Soup
• Easy Tomato Soup
• Vegan Tomato Soup

My Creamy Vegan Tomato Soup Recipe Notes
This classic tomato soup is, with no exaggeration, perfection. Bright tomato flavour that is softened and made super creamy thanks to the addition of cashew cream. (it's only raw cashews and water blended together but let me tell you...life changing stuff that happily replaces dairy cream in most cooking projects) This soup is perfectly balanced and addictive. I like to make vegan grilled cheese sandwiches for dunking and the whole situation is  divine. You will never need to search for another recipe, you will never need to buy the canned stuff, because this recipe is too good and simple to justify that. Certain recipes just belong in one's repertoire, one's that are easy, nourishing, and that will impress anyone lucky enough to grace your dinner table. 

Recipe: The Best Creamy Vegan Tomato Soup

Serves : 6

Ingredients:

• drizzle of olive oil

• 1/8th tsp chili flakes
• 1 onion, diced
• 1 carrot, diced
• 1 celery stalk, diced
• 8 cloves garlic
• 5 tbsp tomato paste
• 1 x 28 fl oz can of whole tomatoes + 2 x can fulls of water
• 1 tsp chopped fresh thyme (or dried)
• 1 tsp dried oregano
• 1 tbsp brown sugar
• 3 x Bay leaves
• 2 cups cashew cream (recipe below, makes more than you need)
• salt and pepper to taste

Method:

1. Heat olive oil in a large pot over medium heat. Add onions, celery and carrot, season with salt and pepper and sweat until mostly softened. 
2. Add garlic and chili flakes and cook a few minutes longer
3. Stir in tomato paste and cook a couple more minutes
4. Now turn up the heat and add the tomatoes, water, thyme and oregano and season with a more salt and pepper.
5. Bring to a boil and reduce to a simmer, you can break up the tomatoes a bit with a wooden spoon to make it easier to blend.
6. With an immersion blender, blend soup until as smooth as you can get it.
7. Stir in brown sugar and add bay leaves.
8. Simmer and reduce for about 30 minutes on medium low heat.
9. Stir in cashew cream, taste, and season with more salt and pepper to taste. It should taste like heaven.
10. Reduce it until it is thickened to your liking, if you make it too thick, just add a bit more water. 
11. For reheating, it seemed thick when cold, but I didn't need to add more water to heat. It loosened up considerably when hot. Add a bit of water if needed.

MODERN PICNIC USE CODE AFFILIATE10

Cashew Cream Recipe
For the cashew cream, I always make 2 cups worth of cashews which fills one of my x large mason jars. It's more than you need for this recipe, but I like to have it on hand. You can heat it with maple and cocoa powder for hot chocolate, reduce it and add garlic and cheese for a creamy pasta sauce, I drizzled it on my overnight oats instead of yogurt, use it in baked goods like scones etc. If you don't want a lot of leftovers you can just make 1 cup worth of cashews and there won't be a lot left. 


Method:

1. Place 2 cups of raw sliced cashews into a bowl and cover them with a couple inches of water. Let soak overnight. If you are in a hurry boiling water over them and soaked for a few hours does the trick, but the longer soaking results in the smoothest creamiest cashew cream. 
2. Dump cashews and water into a blender. If the water doesn't cover the cashews, just add enough so they are covered with about an inch of water. Season with a pinch of salt.
3. Blend until perfectly smooth.
4. Pour into a clean mason jar, it should be thick and a very similar consistency to dairy whipping cream. 
5. Store in the fridge for up to 5 days.